Ugh, this was so fantastic. The way you described everything was just amazing. The PLOT. It was so creative and imaginative and the darkness as the story just darkens. And then ugh, I loved the repetition of "I had a dream." And you do the first person perspective so well!

This was my favourite: "She whispered to me, lured me with wicked promises and told me the world could be mine. It was a filthy, disgusting thing, but men have always wanted to own it. I sought it, too. It was vile, like me."

It was real and the way you described was real AND THE LAST LAST OH MY GOSH. "A child took my hand, and told me not to be afraid." - HAUNTINGLY BEAUTIFUL.

Your way with words is just so brilliant! I had no idea what was going on but the way you described everything painted such a vivid picture in my head I don't think I needed to know what was happening at all.
Was Snape dreaming throughout the whole thing? I liked how he asked if he had tarnished her with his cold hand and trembling hands.
You are a fantastic writer!

alicia and anne
Slytherin

Author's Response: Thank you! I know this is a little obscure, but I'm glad you were able to enjoy the imagery and language, even if I didn't make my meaning totally plain.

Hmm, I don't know if I'd say he was dreaming the whole time. I'm not really sure I know exactly what's going on here, to be honest - haha. To me, these are just some of his deep, dark thoughts, and while it's written as if he's addressing Lily, it's probably not something he would ever actually say to her - just something he would think about, you know? If that makes sense. And as to the "I had a dream" parts - well, they could be actual dreams, or they could just be metaphors for how he views Lily when he's feeling really bitter towards her - like she's a tease, basically.

As an avid Lily/Snape fan, this story was recommended to me to read, since that's been one of my great loves for several years :)
I have to be honest with you, I'm always very wary of these types of poetic stories. As a validator, I'm in the queue a lot and I see people try to create these types of things with obscure metaphors that don't really make sense, even though they are written well.

This story was not like that at all. The obscure metaphors worked so well, and they made SENSE. It was gorgeous, and it absolutely painted an accurate and heartbreaking portrait of what Severus must have felt for Lily during all that time. I tend to take an optimistic tone when I write them, at least giving Severus some semblance of a relationship with Lily regardless of what Canon says. However, I think this is the most realistic, most canon portrayal of what his mind must have been like, and it's written so well.

When you really have to think about the story, understanding that each word means something significant...it's an achievement. Excellent work here. You should be proud :)

Thank you so much for this review. It means a lot to me especially because 1) you're a fan of the ship and 2) you admittedly are wary of stories written like this. It makes the praise so much more meaningful. Generally, I tend to use a much more straightforward writing style, and this was one of my attempts to break out of that box. I'm glad it worked!

I have written a few Snape/Lily fics in the past - a number of which were completely horrendous and cliche. It's one of my favorite pairings, but in my experience it's been really difficult finding a way to write them that I was really happy with. Like you, I usually try to take some kind of optimistic approach, because I find the whole thing very heart-wrenching. But just about every Snape/Lily fic out there casts Snape as this pining character who sees Lily as absolute perfection, and somewhere along the way I said to myself, no, there had to be times when he felt unimaginable bitterness towards her for everything that happened - maybe even felt she strung him along and then turned her back on him and got herself a jerk boyfriend.

I think this approach worked so well with this kind of writing style because it's more of an exploration of Snape's mind than of their relationship, and I like to think he is a fairly intellectual guy, and these mythological references and metaphors really seemed to fit.

Again, thank you so much for reading and reviewing this, and for your wonderful comments!

so when the sky opened up and rained down pearls, seducing me with promises of a world in which I did not belong, I raised my hands and opened my mouth and swallowed the illusion whole.

that is beautiful! this whole thing is beautiful! not weird in the slightest! i really appreciate a touch of obscurity in short pieces (as you know from reading my bizarre-ness, lol).

lilith, venus and the siren. PERFECT! absolutely perfect for this piece and this, i think, is the first time I have truly pities snape, other than in DH of course. others have made me feel compassion for him but this was different. i really do pity him - what dark thoughts he has lurking in his head! it makes you think of the terrible things that have been done to him.

this was amazing. i loved it and i am adding it to favs!
Kate xx

Author's Response: Thanks so much, Kate! I really admire what you do with dark fics, and your writing style, so it's a really good feeling to know you enjoyed a piece of mine that's darker and more obscure than I usually write. It's super flattering!

I am really glad you liked my use of Lilith, Venus, and the Siren. As I was delving into the extremely dark abyss of Snape's psyche here, I was thinking that some part of him must harbor a lot of bitterness for Lily, despite everything else he feels for her. And basically every piece of Snape fiction paints Lily in his mind as this perfect, angelic creature, and he's just so incredibly in awe of her, can never deserve her, etc...but I think that in his bitterness and anger there must be times when he thinks of her in a very unflattering way, like she's a tease and the source of all his pain. So that's what I was experimenting with her, at least in part.

Thanks again! Your review made me so happy (and I'm sorry I took so long to respond!!)

Hi, Melanie! :) I've been hearing great things about this one-shot and I thought it was time to start checking out your stories, starting with this one. Just... wow. I don't even know how you began writing this, much less thought about it. It's incredible! Granted, I was a little bit confused at times, trying to figure out who was what, but man, was this absolutely gorgeous!

Things started to get clearer when I got to this part:

Could you love a man with the soul of a poet, if he had a face like the back end of a bus? I thought you could have, once, but you chose the face of a god with the soul of a used broom salesman. You resided on the mountain with the other immortals and tossed me crumbs from your banquets.

I was just floored. What a clever and poetic way to put it. And then when I got to this:

I closed my eyes and was dashed upon the unforgiving rocks, swept away by muddy waters, until I had drowned in the ash of fallen stars

...simply took my breath away.

What a lovely piece of writing. ♥ So, to answer your question, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. :P

Gill

Author's Response: Hi Gill! Thanks so much for the fantastic review! I don't even know what to say, except that I'm so flattered. This is one of the more obscure things I have written, so a lot of it is intentionally vague, and I was concentrating a lot on using words to create images, rather than convey a solid idea - so to the extent that any of it was confusing, don't worry - entirely my fault, and for the most part intentional. ^_^

OMG! You are officially one of the most talented writers in this site. For me, at least. Your works are amazing! You always leave me in awe with your writing style and I love how complex and beautiful your stories are. I know I sound like a total fangirl right now, but I just can't help it!

For the most part, I was confused while reading this. Not a bad confusion but a good one. I don't even know if 'confusion' is the right word, because I was also impressed, galvanized, thrilled, what have you, with the quality of your writing. I think this is one of those stories that can take forever to grasp and impossible to completely figure out. And that's good! It just means that this is very thought-provoking and worthy of close scrutiny from readers - which is very rare for any story. Good job!

Have you heard of a very old novel called Poliphilo's Strife of Love in a Dream by Rennaissance author Francesco Colonna? It's a story about the protagonist Poliphilo (duh! :P) having the most unusual experience of dreaming while dreaming - like having a dream within a dream. I know, it sounds really weird and to be honest, the novel itself is completely twisted - in a beautiful, itellectually stimulating sort of way. I've only read the English version (the original text is a mix of Latin, Italian, Greek with a touch of Egyptian heiroglyphs) and it.is.unbelievable. The descriptions are beyond stunning, the plot is simple - he searches for love - but the way the whole story's laid out is completely bizarre and so out there that scholars still find it difficult to make sense of the whole point of the novel itself. But I've always thought that maybe, you're not meant to make sense of it, you know? Maybe the author's only purpose is for the readers to enjoy the power of beautifully written words.

Why, you may ask, is this girl telling me all this? Well, it's because I have this theory that you're a distant relative of Francesco Colonna... JOKING! lol. I just thought that this piece reminds me a little of that awesome story, is all. I have this vision of you (though I have no idea what you look like) writing this while in a trance - just typing away, doing free writing while humming to yourself (okay, maybe not the humming part) and the result would be this very eccentic piece. Haha

I have a lot of favorite lines that it would be ridiculous to paste them all in this review (I hope you can consider this a review - more like a fan letter to me) but the thing that I most love about this is that your style is evident, despite the fact that this story is not the usual RonsGirlFriday material that I'm used to. Like this line for example: Could you love a man with the soul of a poet, if he had a face like the back end of a bus? --> so very you! Not that I'm claiming that I know a lot about you to tell precisely, but... yeah. Can't really explain it.

I agree with the previous reviewers that this is less of a story than a stunning piece of lyrical poetry. That only proves my point that you are an awesome writer. I better stop now before I get too fangirl-ish again. Haha

Thank you for writing this! ^_^

Author's Response: Wow, thank you so much for this review. o.O

You're right, much of this is intentionally vague, and therefore I can see how it would seem confusing at times. I had some definite ideas and concepts in my head while writing it, but because my writing style is usually so straightforward, I like to experiment with being more vague and abstract. My intent here was more to create images and feelings, rather than make it totally clear what is going on. And no, I've never heard of that novel or author, but they sound amazing, and I'm flattered to be compared to them. ^_^

Ahahaha...the line you pointed out as seeming very "me" -- that is true isn't it? I would say that line probably has more of my personality in it than the rest of the lines in this fic. XD You are starting to know me too well. -shifty look-

Thank you again, thank you so much. I'm very embarrassed it took me so long to respond, but I always put off replying to really great reviews because I'm always worried about doing them justice in my response - and then I got super busy with work and really let my reviews go for awhile. Anyway, I apologize again. I am really grateful for all of your awesome feedback and wonderful reviews!

In short, I don't know what's wrong with you. But don't try to get rid of it, okay? This is such a unique piece that right after I write this I'm going to see if you have any more like it. First--did you name this Chimera because it's like three different kinds of stories in one? lol. Anyways. This almost seemed lyrical, poetic. It might have told the entire story of Snape/Lily, or it could have been his last thoughts as he was dying. It's specific, but gives way to plenty of interpretive thought.

I love that about this.

In the end he dies for sure. The child is representative of pureness, heaven? Maybe it's Lily? We don't know for sure, and that's okay. Because it COULD be Lily. It also could be Young Severus himself. But we won't ever really know...

How neat. It could have been a dream sequence too, and maybe parts of it were, but it was done in such a way that we could probably just argue and muse about the REAL meaning of it forever and still not completely get it. I wonder if you even understand it fully. I mean, I know that you wrote it, but sometimes you mean for it to be confusing and let it get away from you a bit, you know? I think that might be what you've done here.

In any case, I absolutely loved it. Thank you for giving me something to think about!

Author's Response: XD

Thanks so much for your review! Most of my writing is not like this, as I tend to be more straightforward - so once in awhile I like to experiment with other writing styles. I have written a couple other pieces that are somewhat similar to this - I'd say that "This is how big a moonbeam is" and "Clockwise" are somewhat like this, as they are both stream-of-consciousness-type pieces.

As for the title, "Chimera" - I didn't even think of it that way, three stories in one, but it fits! XD The title is a reference to the mythological beast that was a female, so that fits in with the not-so-flattering depictions of Lily here, and it's also a reference to an illusion or fanciful, unattainable dream.

I'm glad you had such a good time trying to figure out the meanings in this. And as you pointed out, I don't think that even I understand it fully - there are probably lots of interpretations here I never even considered.

Thanks for the fantastic review!! I am really glad you enjoyed this so much, especially as it's a style that's very different for me.

First I want to say I really loved the title Chimera . Wasnít that a Greek mythologic creature? But Iím not sure. This story was like a poem. Man you know how to write. You really have talent Iím telling you REALLY have talent. Do you even realize how beautifull this was? This was nothing what I expected it to be . It really blew my mind. I actually loved the whole story. But this I though was something special:

I had a dream. Her name was Lilith. She walked like fire and talked like diamonds, and she laughed like Aztec gold. She danced just out of my reach and dangled apples over my head, but I could not grasp them. She whispered in my ear but didnít touch me, and when an apple finally fell it was already rotted through.

How the hell is it possible to come up with this. Why Are you here. Write a book! Do something with writing atleast!!! Iím speecheless.

Reading it was like seeing inside a strange dream, all the different images flashing around without a definitive setting gave the story a floating quality, if that makes sense. It was like it had nothing tying the words to the page (well, screen really), like they had no base or structure, and that they'd been born of nothing other than a flow of imagination. Which is what a dream is really.

The contrasting images added an interesting touch, like how there are modern images there but then there's the fantasy ones too. Like this bit:

"Could you love a man with the soul of a poet, if he had a face like the back end of a bus? I thought you could have, once, but you chose the face of a god with the soul of a used broom salesman. You resided on the mountain with the other immortals and tossed me crumbs from your banquets."

Imagining buses and salesmen along with immortal people living in mountains was really cool! It was like being on a reading rollercoaster, all flowing and continuous but with an original edge.

How do you manage to write ever single type of story so well?? Your versatility is spellbinding! I love using that word on this site... makes me think of magic. :)

Despite its pessimistic view on humanity I really enjoyed it, because it was like reading a stream of water... that was filled with evil women.

I wanted to tell you what my favorite parts were, but then I realized I had just copied and pasted the entire story in the review box.

Was this a story? It seemed more like a poem with tasteful metaphors. It wasn't overdone at all, but the metaphors you used were obviously carefully selected, handpicked and treated with care. You have no idea of how incredibly beautiful this piece was.

I loved the title, Chimera. From what I remember, Chimera was a female, fire-breathing Greek monster of sorts, but (and my memory is a bit foggy here) I think it also means something hoped for, but impossible to reach (right?). I really appreciate the story as a whole, great job!

What the heck is wrong with you? Why don't you work at a literary magazine?!

Author's Response: Thanks for the amazing review, Kimya! I am so glad you liked it. And you're right, I did actually spend a lot of time on the wording of this piece - more than I usually spend in writing my other fics - it just seemed that, because this piece was so out there, I had to be extra precise in expressing what I wanted to say.

I LOVE that you caught on to the double meaning of the title! You're the first person to bring that up, and it's EXACTLY what I had in mind when I created the title. I agonized over the title for probably a week, until Chimera hit me, for exactly the two reasons you stated. It is a mythological beast - a female one, which is important to my rather dark and bitter and twisty view of Lily here - and it is also a wild, fanciful unrealistic dream or illusion. It makes my week that you saw that!

I would love to work at a literary mag. :-D Fingers crossed that it will happen someday!

This was very beautiful! A lot of metaphors (which I love) made it slightly hard to understand at times, but some things really got me. A few really beautiful paragraphs:

Could you love a man with the soul of a poet, if he had a face like the back end of a bus? I thought you could have, once, but you chose the face of a god with the soul of a used broom salesman. You resided on the mountain with the other immortals and tossed me crumbs from your banquets.

I had a dream. Her name was Lilith. She walked like fire and talked like diamonds, and she laughed like Aztec gold. She danced just out of my reach and dangled apples over my head, but I could not grasp them. She whispered in my ear but didnít touch me, and when an apple finally fell it was already rotted through.

I have to say that I didn't look at the characters or pairings before I read and afterwards I was like, "Who is this about?!" Then I saw it was Snape/Lily and I see how that really fits in.

I definately don't think you're weird and I really liked this story. It was beautiful and different. Thanks for giving me the chance to experience it.

-Johanna

Author's Response: Thanks for the wonderful review, Johanna! I am really glad you enjoyed this. I was very hesitant to post it, because it's a bit out of my normal way, and it is very weird and at times nearly impossible to understand - so I am really glad to have received such a positive response. It's much darker and more bitter than the stuff I usually write, and definitely a darker interpretation of Lily and the whole Snape/Lily relationship. But I loved writing it and getting inside his twisty mind.

Thanks for pointing out those lines - particularly the second bit you pointed out ("I had a dream. Her name was Lilith...") - that was actually one of the first lines that occurred to me, and the rest of the one-shot really grew outward from that point, so I think that's probably one of my favorite parts as well.

Melanie, this was simply stunning. Like one of your other reviewers said, I don't think I understand this but I don't think I'm meant to either, not completely.

I love, love, loved the repitition in this - it gave it a kind of etheral quality, like a poem or a song. This was so, so stunning, my love, I'm in complete AWE. Not much else to say, really; I'm speechless!

10/10
xx

Author's Response: Thanks for the great review, Georgia! You're right, I'm not sure I intended this to be understood completely. I wrote it with certain meanings in mind, but I was mostly interested in seeing how others interpret it. I was really hesitant to post it, so I have really been amazed by the overall positive response to it. Thank you again for a wonderful review, my love!

It's weird, but a good weird. It's a very interesting piece - I can't even call it a story, it's too much artistic and poem-like - and I think it's brilliant. The metaphors in this are drool-worthy, making me melt at the second paragraph, and the repetition emphasized how song-like or poem-like this was. The whole piece sounds beautiful.

The characterization even works, with Snape almost breaking down in the line about the bus. I hit that line like a brick wall the first time, but it suits Snape's psychology, the deep-rooted bitterness and darkness within him. The last line makes me wonder if it's Harry he's talking about, though I don't know if he actually holds Snape's hand. That would be interesting as the only way Snape can come to terms with Lily's "enchantment" of him.

This story also provides a different way in looking at the Snape/Lily relationship because of how he's seduced by her and of the power she's able to hold over him. It's not sweet innocent unrequited love, it's something more lustful, particularly in the three ways he views her as darker, more malicious figures. It sheds a new light on Lily herself, as she's always held up as good.

You've made me think too much. :P That in itself is dangerous.

Thank you very much for posting this story! It's really something special. ^_^

Author's Response: Wow, thanks for the awesome review, Susan!

I've written my share of innocently pining Snape before, but I wanted to dig deeper and tap into the bitterness and cynicism and anger that I think is much more in character for him. And as you pointed out, Lily is a much darker figure in this interpretation - a tease in a very dark way. It doesn't even necessarily mean that Lily WAS doing anything wrong - just that Snape, in his bitterness and anger, probably could have convinced himself that she was being twisted and malicious in stringing him along. Does that make sense? This is a much more bitter view of Lily from Snape's POV than most people write about, and I really liked exploring it.

I don't know whether the child at the end is Harry - I just really liked that line and liked how vague it was. I don't think Harry takes Snape's hand either, but that line could easily be interpreted as that scene in DH. Or maybe the child is some more innocent incarnation of Lily in Snape's mind? Who knows? I sure don't. XD

Thanks again for the review! I wasn't too sure about posting this piece at first, but I'm glad it made you think and got such a great response from you!

Very cool. I'm don't think I really understand, but at the same time I'm not really sure I'm supposed too.

Either way, it was really well done. I liked the paragraphs that started with 'I had a dream.' Great use of repetition :)

Lovely work, as always!

Author's Response: Yeah, it's a lot more confusing and vague and abstract than my writing usually is - but like you said, in a way, it's not meant to be entirely understood (at least not easily). I wanted to leave quite a bit open to interpretation, see what people think about it. ^_^